See also: 1919 in literature, other events of 1920, 1921 in literature, List of years in literature. See also: 1918 in literature, other events of 1919, 1920 in literature, list of years in literature. ... 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar) // Events January January 7 - Forces of Russian White admiral Kolchak surrender in Krasnoyarsk. ... See also: 1920 in literature, other events of 1921, 1922 in literature, list of years in literature. ... This page indexes the individual year in literature pages. ...

Events

• Hercule Poirot makes his first appearance.
• Beyond the Horizon, Eugene O'Neill's first full-length play, opens at a special matinee at the Morosco Theater on February 2 – partly as an experiment on the part of the producer, partly to quiet the pleading of actor Richard Bennett who has demanded a chance to play the lead role. Reviewers hail the play and O'Neill becomes famous. The Emperor Jones is staged in November.
• This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald is published. It is a sensation, immediately establishing Fitzgerald as a writer and celebrity. Though the book's reputation will dim in later years, Dorothy Parker will recall that it was regarded as an innovative work when it first appeared.
• The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton is published.
• Main Street by Sinclair Lewis is published.
• D.H. Lawrence publishes Women in Love.
• Hart Crane publishes his poem My Grandmother's Love Letters in The Dial. This is his first real step towards recognition as a poet.
• Van Wyck Brooks publishes The Ordeal of Mark Twain, arguing that Twain's genius was perverted by the conditions and culture of late 19th-century America. This is the beginning of the reassessment of Mark Twain, who until this point has been regarded primarily as a humorous entertainer. The 1920s will force a reconsideration of many 19th-century writers, most importantly Melville and Dickinson.

David Suchet as Poirot Hercule Poirot (pronounced ) is a fictional character, the primary detective of Agatha Christies novels. ... Eugene ONeill Eugene Gladstone ONeill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was a Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright. ... The Emperor Jones is a play by Eugene ONeill which tells the tale of an African-American man who kills a man, goes to prison, escapes to a Caribbean island, and sets himself up as its dictator and emperor. ... This Side Of Paradise book cover This Side of Paradise is the debut novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald. ... F.Scott Fitzgerald, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1937 Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an Irish American Jazz Age novelist and short story writer. ... The Age of Innocence is a 1920 novel by Edith Wharton which won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize. ... Edith Wharton Edith Wharton (January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937) was an American novelist, short story writer, and designer. ... Main Street book cover The novel Main Street by Sinclair Lewis was published in 1920. ... Sinclair Lewis Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 — January 10, 1951) was an American novelist and playwright. ... D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 - 2 March 1930) was one of the most important, certainly one of the most controversial, English writers of the 20th century, who wrote novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel books, and letters. ... Women in Love was a novel by British author D.H. Lawrence published in 1920. ... Harold Hart Crane (July 21, 1899 in Garrettsville, Ohio, United States – April 27, 1932 at sea) was a U.S. poet. ... The January 1920 issue of the Dial. ... Van Wyck Brooks (b. ... Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American humorist, novelist, writer, and lecturer. ...

New books

• The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
• Black and White Tangled Threads - Zara Wright
• The Bridal Wreath - Sigrid Undset
• The Burning Glass - Marjorie Bowen
• Chéri - Colette
• A Few Figs From Thistles - Edna St. Vincent Millay
• A Fool in Her Folly - Rhoda Broughton
• The Frontier in American History - Frederick Jackson Turner
• The Great Impersation - E. Phillips Oppenheim
• Harvest - Mary Augusta Ward
• Hugh Selwyn Mauberly - Ezra Pound
• Main Street - Sinclair Lewis
• Miscellaneous Poems - Robert Frost
• Miss Lulu Bett - Zona Gale
• Mountain Interval - Robert Frost
• Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie (first Hercule Poirot mystery)
• The Outline of History - H.G. Wells
• Poor White - Sherwood Anderson
• Prejudices: Second Series - H.L. Mencken
• A Straight Deal - Owen Wister
• Smoke and Steel - Carl Sandburg
• The Story of Doctor Dolittle - Hugh Lofting
• This Side Of Paradise - F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Women in Love - D.H. Lawrence

The Age of Innocence is a 1920 novel by Edith Wharton which won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize. ... Edith Wharton Edith Wharton (January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937) was an American novelist, short story writer, and designer. ... Sigrid Undset as photographed by Carl Van Vechten in 1927. ... Colette Colette [1] was the pen name of the French novelist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (January 28, 1873 – August 3, 1954). ... Edna St. ... Rhoda Broughton (November 29, 1840 – June 5, 1920) was a novelist. ... Frederick Jackson Turner Frederick Jackson Turner (November 14, 1861–1932) was, with Charles A. Beard, the most influential American historian of the early 20th century. ... Cover of Time Magazine (September 12, 1927) Edward Phillips Oppenheim (1866–1946) was an English novelist, a major and successful writer of genre fiction including thrillers. ... Mary Augusta Ward Huxley and Arnold family tree. ... Ezra Pound in 1913. ... Main Street or Main Street America is an almost fanciful, dated reference to the main region of small town/suburban America, since it really no longer exists. ... Sinclair Lewis Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 — January 10, 1951) was an American novelist and playwright. ... Portrait of Frost c. ... Miss Lulu Bett is a 1922 film which tells the story of an unmarried woman, treated as little better than a charwoman in the house of her married sister, who becomes the center of scandal when she is jokingly married to an already-married man. ... Zona Gale (August 26, 1874-1938) was an American writer. ... Portrait of Frost c. ... Agatha Christie Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE (September 15, 1890 – January 12, 1976), was a British crime fiction writer. ... David Suchet as Poirot Hercule Poirot (pronounced ) is a fictional character, the primary detective of Agatha Christies novels. ... The goal of H. G. Wells in The Outline of History was stated in the subtitle: Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind. Wells was very dissatisfied with the quality of history textbooks at the end of World War I, and so, between 1918 and 1919 produced a 1... H. G. Wells at the door of his house at Sandgate Herbert George Wells (September 21, 1866 - August 13, 1946) was an English writer best known for his science fiction novels such as The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine. ... Poor White is an American novel by Sherwood Anderson. ... Sherwood Anderson (September 13, 1876 – March 8, 1941) was an American writer, mainly of short stories, most notably the collection Winesburg, Ohio. ... H. L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (September 12, 1880 - January 29, 1956) was a twentieth century journalist and social critic, a cynic and a freethinker, known as the Sage of Baltimore and the American Nietzsche. He is often regarded as one of the most influential American writers of the early 20th... Owen Wister (July 14, 1860 - July 21, 1938) was an American writer of western novels. ... Time magazine, December 4, 1939 Carl August Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967) was an American poet, historian, novelist, balladeer and folklorist. ... In The Story of Doctor Dolittle (1920), the first of Hugh Loftings Doctor Dolittle books, we are introduced to the good doctor who gives up treating people after Polynesia, his parrot, teaches him animal languages. ... Hugh John Lofting (Maidenhead, Berkshire, England January 14, 1886 - Topanga, California September 26, 1947) was a British author, trained as a civil engineer, who created the character of Doctor Dolittle - one of the classics of childrens literature. ... This Side of Paradise was F. Scott Fitzgeralds first novel, published in 1920. ... F.Scott Fitzgerald, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1937 Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an Irish American Jazz Age novelist and short story writer. ... Women in Love was a novel by British author D.H. Lawrence published in 1920. ... D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 - 2 March 1930) was one of the most important, certainly one of the most controversial, English writers of the 20th century, who wrote novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel books, and letters. ...

New drama

• Karel Čapek - R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)
• John Galsworthy - The Skin Game

Karel Čapek (pronounced ▶ (help· info); IPA: ) (January 9, 1890 - December 25, 1938) was one of the most important Czech writers of the 20th century. ... R.U.R. (Rossums Universal Robots) is a science fiction play by Karel Čapek. ... John Galsworthy (August 14, 1867 – January 31, 1933) was an English novelist and playwright. ... The Skin Game is a 1931 film by Alfred Hitchcock, based on a play by John Galsworthy. ...

Poetry

• Picture Show - Siegfried Sassoon
• Poems - T.S. Eliot (Twelve poems including “Lune de Miel” and “The Hippopotamus.”)

Siegfried Sassoon, 1916 Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, CBE , MC (September 8, 1886 – September 1, 1967) was an English poet and author. ... Poetry (ancient Greek: poieo = create) is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ... Thomas Stearns Eliot (September 26, 1888 - January 4, 1965), was a major Modernist Anglo-American poet, dramatist, and literary critic. ...

Births

• January 2 - Isaac Asimov, author (d. 1992)
• February 11 - Daniel Francis Galouye, American science fiction author (d. 1976)
• March 10 - Boris Vian, French novelist (d. 1959)
• April 5 - Arthur Hailey, novelist (d. 2004)
• July 12 - Pierre Berton, Canadian author
• August 16 - Charles Bukowski, American writer (d. 1994)
• August 22 - Ray Bradbury, American science fiction writer
• October 8 - Frank Herbert, American science fiction author
• October 15 - Mario Puzo, author of The Godfather (d. 1999)

January 2 is the second day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Isaac Asimov, photographed by Jay Kay Klein Dr. Isaac Asimov (c. ... 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ... February 11 is the 42nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1976 calendar). ... March 10 is the 69th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (70th in Leap years). ... Boris Vian (March 10, 1920 - June 23, 1959) was a French writer, poet, singer, and musician, who also wrote under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan. ... 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... April 5 is the 95th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (96th in leap years). ... Arthur Hailey (April 5, 1920 - November 24, 2004) was a British/Canadian/American/Bahamian novelist. ... It has been designated the: International Year of Rice (by the United Nations) International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO) 2004 World Health Day topic was Road Safety (by World Health Organization) Year of the Monkey (by the Chinese calendar) See the world in... July 12 is the 193rd day (194th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 172 days remaining. ... Pierre Berton Pierre Francis Berton, CC , O.Ont , BA , D.Litt (July 12, 1920 – November 30, 2004) was a noted Canadian author of non-fiction, especially Canadiana and Canadian history, and was a well-known television personality and journalist. ... August 16 is the 228th day of the year (229th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Charles Bukowski (August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994), was a Los Angeles poet and novelist often mistakenly associated with Beat Generation writers because of alleged similarities of style and attitude. ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ... August 22 is the 234th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (235th in leap years), with 131 days remaining. ... Ray Bradbury in 1945. ... October 8 is the 281st day of the year (282nd in leap years). ... Frank Herbert (1920 - 1986) Frank Patrick Herbert (October 8, 1920 – February 11, 1986) was a critically and commercially successful American science fiction author. ... Note that this partial list contains some authors whose works of fantastic fiction would today be called science fiction, even if they predate, or did not work in that genre. ... October 15 is the 288th day of the year (289th in Leap years). ... Mario Puzo Mario Puzo (October 15, 1920 – July 2, 1999) was an American author known for his fictional books about the Mafia. ... Cover of The Godfather. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ...

Deaths

• March 26 - Mary Augusta Ward, author
• May 11 - William Dean Howells, writer
• June 5 - Rhoda Broughton, author

March 26 is the 85th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (86th in leap years). ... Mary Augusta Ward Huxley and Arnold family tree. ... May 11 is the 131st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (132nd in leap years). ... William Dean Howells (March 1, 1837 – May 11, 1920) was an American realist author. ... June 5 is the 156th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (157th in leap years), with 209 days remaining. ... Rhoda Broughton (November 29, 1840 – June 5, 1920) was a novelist. ...

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Knut Hamsun
• Pulitzer Prize for the Novel : no award given
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: No award given
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Eugene O'Neill, Beyond the Horizon
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize: D. H. Lawrence, The Lost Girl